This invention relates to systems and methods for electronic trading of a item or instrument sold in an electronic market. More particularly, this invention provides configurable trading interfaces for electronic trading of a item or instrument sold in an electronic market.
As electronic trading becomes more popular, an increasing number of traders are in need of new systems and methods to enter trade commands in a quick, efficient, and accurate manner. In one method of electronic trading, bids and offers for a particular item are submitted independently by a trader to a trading system, those bids and offers are then displayed by the trading system to other traders, and the other traders may then respond to the bid by submitting sell (or hit) or buy (or lift or take) commands to the system. This method of electronic trading is often referred to as one-sided market trading.
Many implementations of this one-sided method of electronic trading, while generally accurate, lack in desired speed mainly because traders are forced to enter bids and offers independently for a particular item. This dual process causes much delay for traders because the traders must follow several steps prior to accomplishing a two-sided market trade. For example, many traders using typical trading systems are required to (1) click on an issue of choice, (2) click on a bid button, (3) use the keyboard to enter a price and size for the trade, (4) click on an offer button, and (5) use the keyboard to enter a price and size for the trade. This one-sided market trading approach is very time consuming.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide systems and methods that enable a trader to execute two-sided market trades quickly, efficiently, and accurately.